Hundreds of thousands of mourners began a procession this morning through the Iranian capital of Tehran for the funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
His flag-draped coffin, and those of his family killed on 28 February in an airstrike at the start of the war launched by Israel and the US, will be carried on board a truck.
Iranian authorities have shut down streets, airspace and daily life for the mourning, which began Saturday and will end Thursday after the slain leader is buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace.
The new supreme leader of Iran did not attend the funeral of his father, although three of his other sons prayed beside his coffin and those of four other family members on Sunday.
There have been threats from mourners to avenge Khamenei’s death. Iranian mourners were seen carrying signs calling for the killing of both US president Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The US federal agencies have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years, stemming from Trump’s ordering the 2020 killing of Gen Qassem Soleimani, who had led the elite Quds Force.
